Spotify is rolling out Prompted Playlists, a new AI playlist creation tool, to Premium subscribers in the U.S. and Canada. The feature, which was originally tested in New Zealand, allows users to make a playlist by describing what they want to hear, in their own words.
Prompted Playlists builds on an earlier AI playlist product, launched in 2024, which allowed for simpler prompts like “get focused at work with instrumental electronica,” or “get pumped up with fun, upbeat, and positive songs.”
Instead, the new Prompted Playlists feature lets users explain in more detail, and in a conversational mode, what they want to hear.
In a demo to press, for example, Spotify showed off a playlist that was built on a long prompt, which read “Find me one artist I haven’t listened to yet, but would probably love, or an artist I’ve only heard one or two songs from, and introduce me to them. Build a playlist of songs that’ll give me an overview of their catalog so it feels like I’m getting to know them. Put the songs you think I’ll like the most in the top five spots.”
The idea behind the new feature, explains J.J. Italiano, Head of Global Music Curation and Discovery at Spotify, is to make it possible for anyone to build a playlist, even if they don’t know much about music curation or the correct words to use.
“For most people, isn’t a part of their job. You don’t always have the time or the energy to keep building the perfect playlist every time your mood changes, and that’s where prompted playlists will come in,” said Italiano, whose team makes popular Spotify playlists like Today’s Top Hits, New Music Friday, and Rap Caviar, among others. “This gives listeners access to that creative process without needing to know genres, or years, or industry language. You don’t need the right words. You just need your words.”
“If you can describe a feeling, you can make a playlist,” he added.
The AI behind the feature analyzes the world of music in real time, including “trends, charts, culture, and history,” Spotify says, as well as the user’s entire listening history since joining the service.
While the playlists are personalized to their creator by default, users can also use the tool to help break out of their usual listening habits and get different recommendations. That is, they can specifically tell the AI not to use their own listening history as a reference point, or they can direct it to introduce them to songs they’ve never heard before, as in the example above.
The prompts don’t have to include any musical terminology, either. For instance, users could ask for a playlist inspired by the weather or a favorite TV show.
Because the prompts are shareable, the feature could also lead to a new type of creator — one who makes AI prompts that others will want to try. While the prompt itself would be the same, each user’s resulting playlist would differ, as it’s personalized to their own tastes and listening history. They could then modify that playlist further, if they chose.
Spotify says Prompted Playlists are the “next evolution” of its earlier AI playlist feature. The new version is more tuned into real-time music trends and culture, understands the full arc of a user’s listening behavior — not just what they’ve listened to recently — and offers deeper control. However, the older AI playlist feature will not be shut down. Instead, the two products will live side-by-side, which could lead to consumer confusion, given the similarities.
The feature will have some usage limits in place because it’s still in beta, and those could change over time. It’s also only available in the English language for the time being.
The company couldn’t say when Prompted Playlists would reach global subscribers, noting that it first wants to learn from these initial markets to inform future launches.
Originally published at TechCrunch
